Seeing is Not Believing
by emjalen
Summary: Tatem Green was your normal graduate student working her way through college; too bad her Sight and curiosity won't let her leave the things lurking under a thin facade of reality won't let her leave well enough alone. Or, the story of how the Dark Smith of Drontheim ended up marrying a mortal woman. Rating is subject to change.


**Disclaimer-** The Mercy Thompson series is the intellectual property of Patricia Briggs, all rights reserved for her. The character Tatem, however, is my interpretative creation.

* * *

The knife was following her.

Tatem paused, the box she was trying to lift digging awkwardly into her hip, propped against the plain metal storage shelves in Zee's basement.

At least, she thought it was a knife.

With her Sight forcefully repressed, the basement was full of shadows and slightly creepy- though thankfully devoid of cobwebs- just like every other basement. She'd come down, with the intention of putting the cardboard, duct-taped shut box of "stuff"- one of the many she'd helped Zee unload into his new house- but that he had not opened and damn near snapped her head off when she'd attempted to.

The Tatem Zee thought he knew- the friendly human who wasn't put off by his sharp tongue, as she was just as likely to sharpen her's on him, who was working her way through graduate school by her earnings from the quirky, small restaurant she'd inherited from an uncle- had only raised her eyebrow, flipped up her hands in a gesture of surrender, and made a crack about not touching his sacred guy stuff- would be in no danger of taking the box down into a...well, whatever he was-Zee's basement.

The Tatem who Looked at things that no one else could see had thought that as long Zee didn't know that she knew he was- well, not human- meant that she would be perfectly safe down in his basement, because he had no reason to hurt the woman whose car he had fixed, who was helping him move into his new home, and who made spectacular muffins.

That Tatem was starting to think she'd been wrong, and there was a reason Zee hadn't wanted her to touch the box in the first place. Come to think of it, he was always the one taking stuff down in the basement too...and had done it so smoothly, that, until now, she hadn't thought about being curious of the _why. _

Now that the human woman was still, the hint of a shadow Tatem had seen among the shadows had gone still- like they knew she was there.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and her eyes flickered to the basement stairs. Could the knife go up the stairs after her?

_Unless it wasn't a knife. _

You were only paranoid if they _really_ weren't out to get you.

Which, those Others might well be, considering she'd killed one of them.

So, with the ease of a _lot _of practice, Tatem triggered her Sight, focusing on the shadow of a knife, and only the knife, letting it drip out of where she'd locked it up tight inside of her. It fought her.

Two minutes later, her shirt was dampened in sweat, sticking to her spine, and now the triumphant owner of a raging migraine, Tatem opened her eyes, and focused on where she'd last seen the shadow.

The jarring sensory input of seeing two realities- what was it, and what _really _was- might have driven another human to their knees. It had the first twenty or so times she'd done it, as a child.

_Huh. So it is a knife. Sort of. Kind of. In a way an ice cream grater is a tea spoon. _

Under her Sight, the shadows darkened even as certain parts of them lightened. _Things _shifted in the corner of her eye, but Tatem didn't give into deadly curiosity. The shadow in a shadow of something that looked like a knife was, indeed, a sharp and pointed object.

It just wasn't a knife.

_Dagger? Sword? Blunt, killing instrument that ends in blood and gore and dead bodies thing? _

Absently, Tatem could admire the workmanship; while she knew absolutely nothing about medieval looking weapons or making them, the- short sword?- was clearly made by an artist.

The blade was long, the length of her forearm, and made of some sort of dark, gleaming metal. Whatever it was, it wasn't steel. The hilt was plain, of the same metal, and the wrappings around the handle were of worn black leather so used to the imprint of a hand the material wasn't cracked.

It was a stark masterpiece, beautiful as it was deadly.

The hair on her arms stood up; her skin broke out into gooseflesh, and the graduate student shuddered, resisting the urge to drop the box, and run until she was in the bright June sunshine and sticky heat.

This weapon was beautiful and horrible, a brooding, black presence of malice, menace, and the desire to spill heart's blood until it's user was soaked in, their skin stained ruby red, consumed by the blood lust, the siren song of killing until bodies were mounded in great piles to be burned-

'_Still think there's a chance Zee could be harmless?' a cynical voice inside her whispered. _

Tatem shuddered away from it, backing into the shelves as her breath froze in her lungs.

Panic curdled her stomach, made her heart beat faster, her skin tighten over her bones until it hurt. Terror babled in her head, a stream of thoughts that threatened to drag her into a dark hole she'd never get out of.

Her mouth was sour as she swallowed, and Tatem leaned against the shelf, the box biting into her arms as she tried to think past her fear, all the while aware of the sword inching closer.

She was not trapped in that Other's underground lair, claustrophobic and half-mad with primitive terror. She had gotten out, Tatem reminded herself. Had killed that Other, and gotten out. She had found her way back to her apartment, had locked herself in, and had been having panic attacks ever since.

_And if she didn't get a hold of herself, she would have now, and then die on a man's instrument for murder from another age. _

"Hey, Zee?" she shouted, voice shaking. "You up there?"

He'd gone to dump some of the garbage out...for someone with very little to move in, the man-male?- was getting rid of an alarming amount of it.

"Tatem?" His voice was thick with Germany, and even though she knew he had to be the owner of that- thing- it was reassuring.

"Yeah. Can I get a little help down here? Your box of secret man-club stuff is a bit heavier than I thought it'd be and I'm having some difficulty getting it up on the shelf."

There was a pause, then a curse in German, and she could hear Zee's boots striking the floor at a fast clip as he headed toward her.

Tatem slumped against the shelves, ignoring the screw head digging uncomfortably into her shoulder, turned away from the sight of the sword creeping closer, ostensibly resting her head against the shelves, and closed her eyes.

She heard Zee clatter down the steps, then pause. If she strained her ears, she heard the slightest hint of a scraping sound- as if a metal edge had made contact with the concrete floor. Then Zee's hands were on the box, and the weight was taken from her arms.

Tatem opened her eyes, and saw his face.

Not his true face, but the one he presented to the world. Sharp gray eyes. A craggy face, not handsome, but strong, appealing in it's own way. A nose that had been broken multiple times and ears that didn't fit. Skin that wasn't pale, but not the rich brown of the skin Under his skin.

Beyond him, was a normal basement, cluttered with boxes, some shelves, and construction tools. No otherworldly sword singing a siren song of bloodlust. In that moment, Tatem felt that she'd been transported from another world; a doubt rose that she'd hallucinated the whole thing.

The ferocious pounding in her head where she'd locked her Sight down so tight it felt like she'd banged it into the back of her skull reminded her that reality was nothing what it looked like.

Zee meanwhile, was frowning at her. He looked a little off...

_Probably because he has the killer sword of doom in his basement. _

Adrenaline jolted through her, but Tatem clamped down on it. She could freak out later. In her car, at home, anywhere but here.

"Thanks for that," she said, gladly letting him take the weight. "It was a bit heavier than I thought."

"You could have let me get it," he pointed out, sounding grumpy as usual. Disgruntled that she hadn't let him the box? She noted that he had slight Old World, chivalrous tendencies...or he didn't want her in his basement, and for a good reason.

"It was annoying me, and thus had to be banished," she answered, purposefully comically dramatic. "And, it was blocking the way to the living room; it had to move anyways."

Zee answered, but Tatem didn't really hear him, a buzzing in her ears. As they started up the stairs, she heard herself answer back, and absently hoped it was appropriate and not gibberish, but she didn't really come back until they were maneuvering Zee's overstuffed, ancient, and sinfully comfortable arm chair into his living room.

Only when she was alone in the kitchen did Tatem allow herself a shaky sigh of relief that turned into two minutes of shallow, panicky breathing.

Her Sight had almost gotten her killed. Again.

_God_, Tatem wished, not for the first time, that she could just be like every other Blind person out there, a blissfully ignorant young woman with no idea of the beautifully terrifying and utterly terrifying, otherworldly things that were beneath the thin fabric of reality; not for the first time, her heart stuttered in anxiety and wondered why she had to See these things.

Then she shook herself. Enough self-pity; she Saw what she Saw, and she'd rather be knowledgeable and alive than ignorant and dead.

Besides, she had a cute mechanic to help move into the neighborhood.


End file.
